The CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index, for example, showed that bitcoin traded as low as $422 around Dec. 18, when the large Chinese exchange BTC China acknowledged that it wasn’t accepting new deposits in the local currency until it could find a new payment processor that would do business with it.

But a funny thing has happened since then: Bitcoin hasn’t experienced an all-out crash. Instead, its value has recovered. A lot.

As of this writing, CoinDesk’s index, which takes the average of bitcoin trading values from three global exchanges (not including BTC China), pegs the value of bitcoin at about $755. That’s a 79 percent increase in a little less than two weeks.

The digital currency is trading a bit lower on BTC China, which still isn’t accepting new deposits, at about $723, but its value has recovered a bunch in the last two weeks.

So, is bitcoin suddenly so resilient that one government’s restrictions can’t topple the whole ecosystem? Or are there artificial safeguards propping the value up? It could be a combination of two.

On one side, it’s clear bitcoin demand has increased across the globe in recent months. But at the same time, BTC China has instituted some changes to its business in the last two weeks, in what seems like an attempt to keep its users from fleeing, that may be affecting pricing.

The first was a bitcoin wallet that the company says would keep customers’ bitcoin stored safely.

The second change was reinstituting trading fees that had been waived for some time, in an effort to “reduce speculation and price volatility.”

“We strongly believe that the regulators want to see Bitcoin develop in a more stable manner in China, without the high volatility in prices,” Lee wrote. “We believe that Bitcoin can continue to thrive in China if the prices are more stabilized.”

Whether that’s the case remains to be seen. Of course, few people would argue that the volatility in price is a good thing for a more mainstream adoption of bitcoin as a payment method.

Either way, the last two weeks have proven one thing: Bitcoin is a lot harder to topple than almost anyone could have expected just six months ago.

What happens after you click “buy” on Amazon.com? To most people, that’s a mystery. I flew out to Phoenix earlier this month to find out by taking a tour of one of Amazon’s warehouses — what it refers to as “fulfillment centers.”

I spent about 90 minutes inside the facility, and documented what I saw in photos. I had limited verbal interactions with workers during my visit, so if you’re looking for a detailed description of what it’s like to work in each role, you’re going to be disappointed.

But if you want an inside look at the operation that CEO Jeff Bezos recently referred to on “60 Minutes” as the “secret” to Amazon’s success, you’ll likely enjoy the photos in the slideshow below.

My American Airlines flight soared over this mountain range on my descent into Phoenix. I imagined Jeff Bezos tinkering with drones somewhere within.

The road leading up to the warehouse was pretty industrial-looking. I also imagined Jeff Bezos working on drones inside these tanks.

We finally pulled up to 5050 Mohave Street, which is Amazon's fulfillment center. My first reaction was that it looked like a prison, but a nice prison.

The entrance was blocked so I had to hop out of my taxi. The colorful flags made it look less like a prison.

I tried going in this entrance, but the door was locked. I later learned this is where high-level Amazon warehouse employees visit to learn fulfillment center black arts.

I soon learned I had to walk down the length of the building to enter the main entrance. There were loading docks as far as the eye could see.

After a five-minute walk, I reached the entrance of the "fulfillment center," as Amazon calls it. "Work hard. Have fun. Make History," it says on the front doors.

Amazon's staff enter through these turnstiles and then proceed through metal detectors.

Some workers choose to store belongings in these lockers near the entrance.

The fulfillment center I visited spans 1.2 million square feet and is one of four Amazon warehouses in Phoenix.

In many ways, it looks like a real-life version of the Chutes and Ladders board game.

In the middle of the floor, a pallet of the new XBox One gaming consoles. Perhaps gifts from Jeff Bezos' to each member of his executive "S Team."

When a package arrives through a loading dock at Amazon's facility, it is scanned into the inventory management system here so there's a virtual record to match the physical product.

This woman stores items wherever she finds room on shelves, scanning the product and the shelf to record the location.

An assortment of Amazon products waiting to be picked, packaged and shipped.

A volleyball sits next to two bags of gum balls. Why? Only the "stower" knows.

This woman is a "picker," which is a role that has developed a level of notoriety for the amount of walking involved. Her scanner directs her to the next item to be picked.

When a product is discovered laying on the floor, it is deposited in this blue tote. Placing it on just any shelf would mess with the operation.

After products are picked, a computer program tells workers such as this one how to organize items by customer order. Each slot represents an order.

Amazon said it planned to make 70,000 seasonal hires in the U.S. Here, two young women gift-wrap some items before they get packed for delivery.

This worker grabs items off of a conveyor belt and then scans them; Amazon's computer system tells her which envelope or box size to use for packaging.

This packing employee asked me to take a picture. He said he hoped his outfit and the Michelle Obama calendar would get the First Lady's attention.

This contraption, also known as the slam line, weighs the package for accuracy.

Then, it "slams" on a shipping label.

The orange pieces on the "ship sorter" automatically push boxes down these chutes to the right loading dock based on speed and shipping company.

Even taking a photo in panoramic mode, I couldn't fit the entire building in the shot.

Forget the free gourmet food. If peer-to-peer lending marketplace Lending Club has its way, low-interest loans may be the next big employee perk at Google.

According to sources, Google is among the companies Lending Club has been pitching on putting cash holdings to work by offering low-interest loans to employees, with the Lending Club platform facilitating the deals.

(Perhaps it has to do with Google’s new late-stage investment fund Google Capital. which happens to have recently led a $125 million investment in Lending Club, by acquiring shares from existing shareholders.)

Lending Club’s pitch is part of the company’s strategy to push beyond its initial focus on peer-to-peer loans by opening up its platform to large institutions such as banks and corporations as it eyes a potential 2014 IPO.

Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche said that his company is not currently working with Google on such an initiative, but would not confirm or deny that talks have taken place. Still, he did confirm that his company is in talks with large companies — with employee counts of Google’s size or larger — about facilitating this type of human-resources benefit.

“The program we’re putting in place gives the ability for large companies with lots of employees to make loans to their employees and use their treasury reserves, on which they are earning like one or two percent, and put them to work,” he said in a recent interview. “At the same time, they would be offering a lower interest rate to their employees than what they’re paying on their credit cards or other loans they have. It’s really an HR benefit and recruiting tool.”

Laplanche imagines employees using these loans to pay off high-interest credit card debt, large student loans or simply to consolidate debt into one loan, with payments being automatically deducted from paychecks. Lending Club charges an origination fee, typically of about four percent, to borrowers, but some companies may choose to pay that for their employees, Laplanche said. He said it was likely that Lending Club would ink deals with some large corporations in 2014.

At the same time, the loans would in theory give corporations better returns on some of their holdings, while also serving as a recruiting and retention tool. They could be a nice perk for part-time workers who may need the help the most.

Lending Club, which is profitable and will book about $100 million in revenue this year, according to Laplanche, also sees a huge opportunity to facilitate loans to small businesses in the future.

The company feels it is in a good position to go public next year, Laplanche said, although it doesn’t need the capital.

“There’s no urgency for us to go public but as part of building the brand and establishing Lending Club as the bank of the next decade, I think being a public company is part of building up the brand awareness,” he said.

Yesterday, Chase bank notified some of its customers that it was limiting debit card purchases and ATM withdrawals they could make in the wake of the recent card breach at big-box retailer Target.

Chase debit card holders who shopped in a U.S. Target store between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15 will temporarily only be able to withdraw $100 at a time from ATMs, and make purchases of up to $300, Chase told customers in an email and in a notice on its site.

The limits will remain in place temporarily while Chase issues new debit cards to approximately two million of its customers who shopped at a Target store during the timeframe. While the investigation into how the Target breach occurred is still ongoing, security blogger Brian Krebs reported Friday that some card info from the Target heist is already for sale on underground markets.

Chase’s decision to set limits and issue new cards comes as Target continues to say that it has no reason to believe that debit card PIN codes were stolen, while names, card numbers and expiration dates were.

So why is Chase taking the action it is? For one, you can imagine it’ll be a relief to Chase customers to just get a new card and not have to worry about monitoring their possibly-compromised card for the foreseeable future. At the same time, the limits will also be inconvenient for many in the days leading up to Christmas, so Chase says some branches will stay open later than normal or even open today, Sunday, to accommodate affected customers.

But, at the same time, Chase is also looking out for Chase. The bank has made the calculation that it’ll be less costly to take the steps it is now taking than deal with the loss of financial and time resources that could come in the event that Target’s breach leads to more fraud than anticipated on Chase customer cards. Some would call that smart business.

As someone who knows both businesses well told me this weekend, “Chase knows more than Target about fraud.”

While Chase is issuing new debit cards to all affected, Target is not doing the same with its Redcard holders. A Target spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that decision.

Instead, Target has said it is working on putting in place a free, credit-monitoring service for all shoppers who may be affected.

Yaron Samid, CEO of BillGuard, a service that monitors credit- and debit-card accounts for fishy transactions, called the Target offer “a nice gesture,” but a solution to the wrong problem.

“Credit monitoring alerts you to changes in your credit report, which has nothing to do with fraud on your credit cards or debit cards,” he wrote in an email to AllThingsD. “Changes in your credit report are based on new account openings or delinquencies in paying your bills. It’s ideal for protecting people from Identity Theft — when someone tries to open an account with your information.”

Samid said he has been trying to contact Target executives to offer BillGuard to affected Target shoppers, which would undoubtedly provide a huge awareness boost to the New York City startup.

“Our crowdsourced transaction monitoring network incorporates the inputs of millions of cardholders who spot suspicious charges on their cards and flag/report them similarly to marking an email as spam,” he wrote. “We them find similar charges on our users cards and prioritize them for their review.”

If you’re an Amazon investor, you’re happy these days. The company’s stock price surpassed $400 for the first time ever this week, only five months after it topped $300 per share for the first time. Things are looking up, and the drones haven’t even arrived yet.

But inside Amazon, another issue is getting attention: What Bloomberg Businessweek’s Brad Stone referred to earlier this week as “a small but growing drumbeat of dissatisfaction” in its network of warehouses.

As Stone first reported earlier this week, about 30 workers in a Delaware Amazon facility will vote next month on whether to hold union elections there. Amazon, which has long fought against unionization at its facilities, has retained the services of a well-known employment law firm, in the event the workers’ union plans move forward.

That news was followed later in the week by the story, broken by AllThingsD, about the death of a worker at a facility owned by Amazon, but run by a third-party logistics firm called Genco. Although the victim, who police later identified as 57-year-old Ronald Smith of Irvington, New Jersey, was hired by a temp staffing firm, his death raised questions about the training of such workers.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is now investigating the accident.

Separately, an ongoing battle between Amazon and some of its German workers who have organized strikes on several occasions over the past year over wages, recently crossed over to U.S. soil. On Monday, a few dozen German union representatives protested outside Amazon’s Seattle warehouses.

In many ways, Amazon is on a roll. But certain workplace issues don’t seem to be going away anytime soon.

In a race to be crowned the next Oreo, it seems as though every week another advertiser makes a really dumb decision on social media, by trying to latch on to the issue of the moment.

Call it the drunk dialing of social marketing.

The most recent offender is in-flight Internet provider Gogo. The company — or at least the person manning its Twitter account — has decided that Justine Sacco’s terrible judgement is a fantastic marketing opportunity.

Sacco, of course, is the IAC PR head who on Friday posted this message to Twitter — “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” — and then went silent, supposedly because she was on an international flight.

It’s one thing to chime in during a blackout during the Super Bowl. But I can’t fathom why any brand would want to associate itself with Sacco’s tweet — which, again, anyone with any common sense finds deeply offensive.

I asked the person running Gogo’s Twitter account what they were thinking, but they don’t seem interested in any more real-time conversation. Earlier, though, the Gogo account did defend itself to a Twitter user named Douglas Crets.

@DouglasCrets You made our point. With inflight connectivity the full story would have already been out there.

Gogo spokesman Steve Nolan just spoke to AllThingsD and said the company is reviewing how such a tweet saw the light of day.

“We feel it’s not our role to engage those types of borderline topics to raise some activity in social media,” he said. “Our policy is pretty simple: To try to keep people informed or connected in-flight. It’s more of a customer-care operation than to try to stir the pot.”

Nolan said that despite some positive reaction to the tweet, “It’s not what we want for the brand in social media.”

Update 7:50 pm ET: Sacco’s employer IAC issued a statement on Saturday evening. “We take this issue very seriously, and we have parted ways with the employee in question,” part of the statement read. At the same time, the company seemed to call for some level of compassion toward Sacco: “We hope, however, that time and action, and the forgiving human spirit, will not result in the wholesale condemnation of an individual who we have otherwise known to be a decent person at core.”

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131220/real-time-marketing-hits-new-low-starring-gogo-and-justine-sacco/feed/0Jack Dorsey's Holiday Gift to Square: 10 Percent of His Shareshttp://allthingsd.com/20131220/jack-dorseys-holiday-gift-to-square-10-percent-of-his-shares/
http://allthingsd.com/20131220/jack-dorseys-holiday-gift-to-square-10-percent-of-his-shares/#commentsFri, 20 Dec 2013 16:02:08 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=380279In a rare move for any executive, Square CEO Jack Dorsey has returned about 10 percent of his stake — or about three percent of all company shares — back to the company. The move, which Fortune reported this morning, will expand the pool of shares that Square can dole out to current and new employees, whether they come through normal hiring or acquisitions.
]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131220/jack-dorseys-holiday-gift-to-square-10-percent-of-his-shares/feed/0Warby Parker Is Seeing Green After New $60 Million Investmenthttp://allthingsd.com/20131220/warby-parker-is-seeing-green-after-new-60-million-investment/
http://allthingsd.com/20131220/warby-parker-is-seeing-green-after-new-60-million-investment/#commentsFri, 20 Dec 2013 15:07:44 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=380262Warby Parker, the eyewear startup that has built a cult following in a short time, has raised a new $60 million investment led by its biggest investor, Tiger Global Management, as was first reported by Fortune. Existing investors General Catalyst Partners, Spark Capital and First Round Capital also contributed to the Series C round, which brings Warby’s total funding to about $115 million.
]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131220/warby-parker-is-seeing-green-after-new-60-million-investment/feed/0In Wake of Card Data Breach, Target's Redcard Website Has Been Down All Dayhttp://allthingsd.com/20131219/in-wake-of-card-data-breach-targets-redcard-website-has-been-down-all-day/
http://allthingsd.com/20131219/in-wake-of-card-data-breach-targets-redcard-website-has-been-down-all-day/#commentsFri, 20 Dec 2013 01:50:57 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=380021

But if the card you’ve used in a Target store recently is one of Target’s very own debit or credit cards, dubbed Redcards, you’re out of luck for now.

The Redcard website has essentially been down all day. I tried to log in for the first time around 11 am ET, but the site wouldn’t load. More than nine hours later, at the time of this writing, the site is still down. The phone line has been down all day as well.

Things are a mess.

Earlier in the day, Target spokesman Eric Hausman gave me this canned statement: “We are experiencing significantly higher volume than normal to our call centers and Redcard website, causing delays. We are working hard to resolve this issue by adding team member support and system capacity as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate our guests’ patience as we build capacity hour by hour until we meet all our guests’ needs.”

When I spoke to him again around 6 pm ET, he said the company didn’t have any further updates.

In its statement this morning, Target told all customers who shopped in a Target store between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15 to check their accounts for the cards they used to make purchases during that timeframe. They did not tell customers to have new cards issued.

Still, Target’s Facebook page is full of concerned Redcard customers who can’t access their accounts, asking for Target to issue new cards across the board. That outcome seems highly unlikely.

For Target shoppers who made purchases in a Target store sometime during that two-and-a-half-week period, this is the information that fraudsters may have on you: Your name, your credit or debit card number, the expiration date and a code known as CVV1 that is stored on the card’s magnetic stripe and is used to verify that a card is being used at a real-world store and not online.

With this information, a person could replicate your card for use in stores or other physical merchant locations.

But Target “has no indication” that the breach included the three- or four-digit security codes printed on the cards, which are used by businesses to guard against fraudulent charges made over the phone or on the Web. There was some miscommunication on Target’s end about this earlier in the day, but Hausman clarified it for me in our chat and confirmed that what I just spelled out is the case.

Why is this important? It means that your card information, even if stolen through the attack, likely cannot be used to make online purchases, assuming websites require the security code printed on the card, as most reputable ones do.

Hausman also said that the company “has no indication at this time” that debit-card PIN codes were compromised. Again, the ongoing investigation by a third-party company could prove that inaccurate, but it appears to be unlikely right now.

The company asserts that the data hacking in no way affects purchases made on Target.com.

Still, on Target’s end, this is just the beginning of the fallout from the breach.

No matter how many times the company tells shoppers that it is now safe to use plastic at their stores, the news will likely have some negative effect on sales during one of the worst possible times of year for such a breach to happen.

Target could also be on the receiving end of fines from credit card companies and banks whose customers get hit with fraudulent charges as a result of this breach.

Separately, the breach is just the latest occasion for some payment industry observers to call for a more strict rollout of so-called chip-and-PIN cards that are prevalent in Europe and widely believed to be less susceptible to fraud than the swipeable cards we use in the U.S. Most types of U.S. businesses will have to install hardware capable of accepting these types of cards by October 2015, or risk taking on responsibility for fraudulent charges as banks and credit card companies shift liability to merchants.

The largest bitcoin exchange in China, BTC China, is in peril after regulators in the country reportedly moved to block payment processors from accepting the virtual currency. The move leaves the exchange without a way to accept new Chinese yuan deposits and could lead to it shutting down.

In an interview with AllThingsD this morning, BTC China CEO Bobby Lee said his 30-person company hasn’t given up on keeping the exchange afloat. Lee said his Shanghai-based operation has been in talks with other payment processors about working with the exchange to reinstate Chinese yuan deposits, but hasn’t yet reached any agreements.

“Whether or not they’re told not to do business with us is something else entirely, because we’re not privy to that conversation,” he said. “The assumption is some of the past third-party payment processors have declined us because they’ve been told not to do it or suppose it’s high risk. But that’s only speculation.”

If BTC China does not find any takers, Lee said, the company may explore ways to accept deposits of the local currency without working with a third-party company. Lee declined to talk specifically about how that might work, because he said his company is still vetting its options with lawyers and trying to get clarity from Chinese regulators.

If both paths fail, BTC China will likely have to shut the exchange down.

Lee isn’t ready to call that outcome likely, though, noting that only two days have passed since deposits were cut off.

“It’s still early,” he said. “Our exchange is operating. The prices are volatile, but buyers are able to buy, sellers can sell, renminbi withdrawals are happening, but deposits are not happening. So, it is what it is.”

Bitcoins were trading at the equivalent of about $550 on the exchange at the time of writing. Meanwhile, the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index, which is the average of prices on three exchanges, not including BTC China, currently pegs the currency’s value at $665. Bitcoin was trading as high as $1200 just three weeks ago.

It’s not clear how much longer BTC China can remain a viable exchange without new deposits. What is clear, though, is that Lee seems committed to carving out a new path for BTC China, still involving bitcoin, if the exchange closes.

“Whether we will remain a bitcoin exchange will highly depend on how the regulators will allow for bitcoin exchanges to exist in China,” Lee said. “But in some sense we are at the mercy of regulators and government. If this cannot continue, I assure you we will find a new model and come up with new products and services to allow our customers to utilize their bitcoin.”

“We got venture capital funding for a reason,” Lee added, speaking of the company’s $5 million investment from Lightspeed Partners and Lightspeed China Partners. “To safeguard for this rainy day.”

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131219/china-bitcoin-exchange-ceo-were-not-giving-up-yet/feed/0Braintree Officially Joins PayPal as $800 Million eBay Acquisition Closeshttp://allthingsd.com/20131219/braintree-officially-joins-paypal-as-800-million-ebay-acquisition-closes/
http://allthingsd.com/20131219/braintree-officially-joins-paypal-as-800-million-ebay-acquisition-closes/#commentsThu, 19 Dec 2013 15:43:23 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=379914EBay’s $800 million purchase of payments startup Braintree on behalf of its Paypal subsidiary has closed, according to a PayPal blog post. The acquisition gives Paypal a strong foothold in the world of mobile app payments, which it hopes to bolster with the smaller acquisition of StackMob, announced earlier this week.
]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131219/braintree-officially-joins-paypal-as-800-million-ebay-acquisition-closes/feed/0If China Wanted to Ban Bitcoin, It Would Ban Bitcoinhttp://allthingsd.com/20131218/if-china-wanted-to-ban-bitcoin-it-would-ban-bitcoin/
http://allthingsd.com/20131218/if-china-wanted-to-ban-bitcoin-it-would-ban-bitcoin/#commentsWed, 18 Dec 2013 19:24:59 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=379699

The price of bitcoin has taken a beating in the last day following a move by the Chinese government to ban new Chinese yuan deposits in the country’s biggest bitcoin exchange, BTC China.

The price of bitcoin bottomed out at about $422 earlier today on the news, before rebounding to about $604 at the time of writing, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index.

Still, the currency is trading down 12 percent today and about 36 percent since Friday. The deposits ban is a blow to the bitcoin ecosystem in China and perhaps worldwide, but it’s a not a death knell.

For one thing, BTC China CEO Bobby Lee told CoinDesk today that he is trying to work out a deal with a different third-party payment company to reinstate Chinese yuan deposits.

Secondly, if China wanted to ban bitcoin, it would ban bitcoin. It’s not illegal to own bitcoin in the country. Bitcoin owners can still trade with each other, but need to go offline if they actually want to buy some bitcoin with Chinese yuan.

So what’s going on here? I asked a couple of sources who are entrenched in the bitcoin world and the most common guess is some variation of the following: The Chinese government simply wants to tap the brakes on a phenomenon that caught it off guard.

“China’s government is generally supportive of bitcoin, but the rapid increase in awareness, price and adoption caught them a little flat-footed and they wanted to take a ‘pause’ while they better understand the landscape, etc.,” one source theorized. “This is somewhat similar to the U.S. Ultimately, the rulings will evolve to be more accommodating.”

This may very well end up being wishful thinking. And you’d imagine the bitcoin price would tumble a whole lot further on news of an all-out ban, since many industry observers credit a rise in demand of bitcoin in China as a major contributor to the currency’s price and adoption increase over the past month.

But until the Chinese government shows more of its hand, a total bitcoin meltdown doesn’t appear to be on the horizon.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131218/if-china-wanted-to-ban-bitcoin-it-would-ban-bitcoin/feed/0Tristan Walker’s Next Act: Building a Procter & Gamble for People of Colorhttp://allthingsd.com/20131218/tristan-walkers-next-act-building-a-proctor-gamble-for-people-of-color/
http://allthingsd.com/20131218/tristan-walkers-next-act-building-a-proctor-gamble-for-people-of-color/#commentsWed, 18 Dec 2013 13:00:43 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=379469

In his first few months as an entrepreneur in residence at Andreessen Horowitz, Tristan Walker dreamed big when it came to startup ideas. There were the seeds he planted for a new kind of bank. There was the idea for a venture aimed at tackling childhood obesity.

But, then, Walker decided his best bet was to found a company that was more “authentic” to him and his experiences. What he came up with was Walker & Company Brands, a next-generation Procter & Gamble with a straightforward, if ambitious, mission: To make health and beauty simple for people of color.

That’s what he told me in an interview on Sunday night about his new company, which has raised $2.4 million led by Los Angeles-based Upfront Ventures, with backing from Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel, Collaborative Fund, Sherpa Ventures and the William Morris agency’s Charles King.

Prior to Andreessen Horowitz, Walker ran business development at Foursquare, where he worked for nearly three years. On the surface, at least, the switch from a social-networking site to a consumer product goods company doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

But when you hear Walker talk about his reason for creating Bevel, a $29.95-a-month shaving kit that is the first brand launching under the Walker & Company umbrella and accepting preorders today, you can understand his motivation.

Here’s an edited version of our conversation.

AllThingsD: Where did this idea come from?

Tristan Walker: I was at Andreessen Horowitz for about nine months and I feel personally that I spent seven months of my time there chasing problems I probably wasn’t the right guy to solve. I wanted to build a bank. I wanted to fix childhood obesity — super ambitious things. But then I reflected back on entrepreneurs I was inspired by and the one thing that’s unique about them is that there is an authenticity about the problems they’re trying to solve.

If I spend the next 10-plus years of my life doing anything, I want to feel like it’s truly authentic and I have an interesting story to tell about it.

So how did you land on the idea for Walker & Company?

Over the past year and a half, I’ve had two views of the world that I really believe to be true, and which few people in Silicon Valley have.

The first is that a lot of culture globally is driven by black culture, and more recently Latin and Asian culture — folks of color overall. And a big frustration is that while these groups are early adopters not just with smartphones, but with the Twitters, Facebooks, Instagrams and Youtubes, it’s almost as if these demographics have gone neglected by Silicon Valley.

The second view is that the CPG world, consumer package goods, needs to change. There’s the business model, but more specifically my experience of going to an offline retailer and having to go to aisle 14 and reach down to the bottom shelf for a dirty package with a picture of a 45-year-old bald black guy and they assume I’ll buy that product. That second-class-citizen view needs to go.

So how did these views influence what you are building?

Walker & Company exists for one reason: To make health and beauty simple for people of color.

There are three ways we hope to do that. We’re committed to designing, developing and selling products that solve problems for people of color.

We want to deliver on the promise of amazing customer service that makes people feel like they are generally cared for as they shop for products.

And not only do we want to build a delightful shopping experience, but also a practical one. Sure, you have an e-commerce site, but what do you do for people that can only pay with cash? Or for people who are scared to have stuff shipped to them for fear of it getting stolen?

What’s the first product you are launching?

The first brand is called Bevel. It’s the first end-to-end solution to fix razor bumps for men. It’s a six-piece kit.

I feel like starting with razors could either be brilliant or a really bad idea right now since there’s a bunch of startups like Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s getting a lot of attention.

We’re not a razor company. When I thought about the shaving business, I thought about my own story.

Every encounter I’ve had of shaving and hair removal has sucked. The first time I shaved with a multi-blade razor, I woke up the following morning completely broken out and formed the opinion then that all razors are the plague. It was really the function of my curly hair and my type of skin. But up to 80 percent of all black men have a similar problem.

The second way I learned was really through the barber. But the barber would use the same clippers as he did on every other person’s hair, and there are potentially problems. It might be not clean, it also destroys hair follicles and doesn’t cut as close.

The last way I learned was with a depilatory cream. You let it sit on your face for six to eight minutes and then you wipe it off, but it stinks, burns and has all these harsh chemicals that could discolor you. The only reason I used it was because I saw my brother use it; I didn’t have a father around to show me how to shave the right way.

So Bevel is a better way?

Yes. Let me explain each part. The first thing is a double-edge safety razor. It’s all brass, very heavy, a great premium product that gives one clean cut.

There’s also a single blade that cuts level with the skin.

Then we have a shaving brush that allows us to exfoliate the skin and raise the hair.

And our shaving cream and aftershave also have ingredients and propriety formulas that reduce issues related to razor bumps.

This is just the beginning. Sure, we are selling safety razors, but can we do electric razors eventually? Perhaps. Can we focus on women?

All of our products will start with problems first: Natural hair transitioning, vitamin D deficiency. We’re going to be patient and figure out the right problems to solve. And each product has to solve a really important problem.

What experience in this space do you bring to the table?

I’m an expert in the problem I have, and what type of brand I want to be associated with. Now it’s about the cast of characters around me and helping me scale our efforts around things like supply chain, product design, e-commerce and other parts of tech.

How will you sell the Bevel kit?

At launch, online direct to consumer. It’s just the most efficient path to get the product out there and get great feedback. Down the line for sure we want to go omni-channel. We do not believe you can build a really great brand only online. So we think about what does the next generation black barbershop look like where actual culture is discussed, politics is discussed. It’s such an important part of our culture. So what could it mean to distribute a product through that?

If the amount of people that suffer from problems that you say Bevel solves is so big, why aren’t the big CPG companies going after it in a big way?

I don’t think it’s getting ignored; they see the demographic shift. But if you talk to any CPG exec they say that the products they build are for the masses. But the masses today look different than they will in 20 years. For a large CPG company with a large installed distribution base to make the switch toward the new mass audience, it’s going to be incredibly difficult.

Also, distribution is going to change. How do I deliver this product in a way that folks want it? How do I speak the language that folks want? At this moment, as far as I can observe, a lot of CPG companies have been putting black folks in ads and hoping it resonates.

Let’s say your product and brand catch on. Why couldn’t P&G or another big CPG company launch a similar product and just crush you?

I say, “Game on.” We’re still a Silicon Valley company. Where I get excited is how you leverage tech and data to drive a compelling experience. Does the same messaging that resonates with a person that’s living in Atlanta resonate with someone in Chicago? What kind of testimonial photos do people want to see for a certain age? How do we actually build a compelling merchandising experience for every single one of our customers?

So you really haven’t found any competitors specifically targeting men of color with a modern shaving brand?

I haven’t been able to find it and my friend’s haven’t been able to find it. If there’s competition, it’s one we want to help: The local barber, who uses electric clippers to shape you up. Those same barbers often use straight razors to shave you and that’s not a ritual we want to get in front of.

Go there every Saturday, and let us take care of you Sunday through Friday.

A man working at one of Amazon’s new warehouses was killed two weeks ago after being crushed by a piece of equipment, according to the Department of Labor.

The accident occurred on Dec. 4 at an Amazon fulfillment center in Avenel, N.J., according to an incident report on the website of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“The victim was caught in between and crushed by equipment,” Leni Uddyback-Fortson, a regional director with the Department of Labor’s Office of Public Affairs told AllThingsD in an email. She declined to provide additional information, noting that OSHA was still investigating the accident.

The death seems to have occurred at the same facility I wrote about in August, when I noticed Amazon job listings for a new Avenel, N.J., fulfillment center.

There has been some speculation that this new warehouse might hint at an expansion of the Amazon Fresh grocery delivery business to New York and New Jersey, since the property, located about 20 miles from Manhattan, was previously occupied by a grocery company. The facility is one of two that Amazon is currently building out in New Jersey; the other, located in Robbinsville, N.J., is scheduled to open next year, according to a recent report in the Times of Trenton.

Amazon confirmed that the worker was not one of its employees. Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Cheeseman told AllThingsD, “We’re very saddened and our hearts go out to his family and loved ones.”

I haven’t been able to confirm the victim’s employer, but will update this post when I get that information.

Update 7:46 pm ET: Uddyback-Fortson, of the Department of Labor, said in a follow-up call that the victim was employed by Abacus, a temporary staffing firm. Sources tell AllThingsD that while Amazon owns the facility where the accident occurred, third-party logistics firm Genco manages the operations there.

Abacus executives did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. A woman who answered the phone at Abacus’ Avenel location hung up on me when I identified myself as a reporter.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131217/worker-killed-at-one-of-amazons-new-jersey-warehouses/feed/0Sailthru Raises $20 Million to Spread the Gospel of Personalizationhttp://allthingsd.com/20131217/sailthru-raises-20-million-to-spread-the-gospel-of-personalization/
http://allthingsd.com/20131217/sailthru-raises-20-million-to-spread-the-gospel-of-personalization/#commentsTue, 17 Dec 2013 12:30:06 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=379137New York City-based Sailthru, which makes a software suite that helps media companies and marketers personalize editorial content and marketing messages for individual users, has raised a $20 million Series C investment led by Scale Venture Partners. Benchmark and RRE Ventures were among the other investors who chipped in to the round.
]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131217/sailthru-raises-20-million-to-spread-the-gospel-of-personalization/feed/0The Amazon Kindle Numbers That Jeff Bezos Must Really Care Abouthttp://allthingsd.com/20131212/the-amazon-kindle-numbers-that-jeff-bezos-must-really-care-about/
http://allthingsd.com/20131212/the-amazon-kindle-numbers-that-jeff-bezos-must-really-care-about/#commentsThu, 12 Dec 2013 21:48:51 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=378540

We all know that Amazon’s annual touting of its new Kindles as the best-selling Kindles ever has become laughable since the company doesn’t provide any sales figures to back up its claims.

But a recent analysis of survey data by research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners shows that maybe, just maybe, there are other Kindle-related figures that are just as critical to Amazon, if not more so.

First, at a high level, CIRP estimates that 20.5 million Kindles — e-readers and Kindle Fire tablets combined — are currently in use in the U.S., and that 40 percent of Amazon.com’s customers own one of the devices.

But spending data among Kindle owners is the really interesting stuff.

CIRP conducted a survey of 300 Amazon.com customers over the three months leading up to Nov. 15 and found, perhaps not all that surprisingly, that people who own Kindles spend more on Amazon than those who don’t.

But the size of the disparity is pretty astounding.

Based on its research and analysis, CIRP estimates that Kindle owners spend $1,233 per year on Amazon compared to $790 per year for Amazon shoppers who don’t own one of the company’s e-readers or tablets. Kindle owners aren’t necessarily buying more at a shot, but are buying more frequently.

“Another way to look at Kindle Fire and Kindle e-Reader is as a portal to Amazon.com,” CIRP’s Mike Levin said in a statement. “Kindle Fire provides access to everything Amazon sells, while Kindle e-Reader has become the way that Amazon customers buy books, Amazon’s original product line.”

On the surface, at least, one could make the argument then that Amazon could potentially drop prices on the devices to get them into the hands of more people, since they become more valuable customers. But, drop prices too far and you may attract a different set of customers that may cause that spending disparity to shrink.

“[W]e’ve joked that they should pay us to use it given how it’s more than just another competing tablet in a crowded marketplace,” Levin said in an email to AllThingsD. “Of course, charging for a Kindle does help Amazon identify the most promising customers.”

If you’re a bitcoin doubter, you might want to turn away. The doors to venture funding in bitcoin startups are about to swing wide open.

Andreessen Horowitz has led a $25 million Series B investment in San Francisco-based Coinbase, the companies are announcing today, in what may very well be the largest-ever venture investment in a bitcoin-related company. Coinbase previously raised nearly $7 million.

Coinbase currently employs only eight people, but will add significantly to that total. It may also start to buy advertising to promote itself and bitcoin.

Bitcoin is often described as a digital currency and also as a payment network, though you can find people who say it behaves more like a commodity, or even a security. No matter what you call them, each bitcoin consists of a long digital string of characters, and the network consists of a decentralized sprawl of computers that approve transactions and solve increasingly complex math problems to create — or “mine” — new bitcoins.

Coinbase plays a few roles in this ecosystem. It is best known as a so-called bitcoin wallet, which bitcoin owners use to store the digital currency in the cloud so they don’t have to worry about safeguarding it from, say, hackers, on their own computers. It says it currently holds more than 600,000 bitcoin wallets.

The startup also helps people buy and sell bitcoins, working as an intermediary between individuals and bitcoin exchanges. It charges a one percent transaction fee for buying and selling bitcoins.

Lastly, Coinbase helps businesses accept bitcoins as a payment method, and takes a one percent cut if a merchant wants to exchange the bitcoin for its local currency (the fee kicks in only after a merchant uses Coinbase to process $1 million in bitcoins.) Atlanta-based BitPay, backed by Founders Fund, is probably the best-known bitcoin payment processor right now.

Over the last two months alone, the price of a bitcoin has soared from a little more than $100 to north of $1,000 (it was around $900 at the time I wrote this), boosted in some part by U.S. Senate hearings that took on a much more positive tone than many observers had expected. Along the way, media attention focused on the digital currency has intensified.

Different people see different potential in bitcoin.

Some see it as an attractive payment method for small businesses to accept, since bitcoin transactions inherently carry no, or tiny, transaction fees compared to the two percent to three percent fees for debit or credit card transactions. (Bitcoin processing companies typically charge businesses around one percent to turn bitcoins into cash deposits.)

Others see potential for the bitcoin network to become a competitor to companies such as Western Union, as a cheaper alternative to send funds to people overseas.

There’s also a large group of people right now that view it strictly as a speculative bet — let’s buy it today, hope its value increases, and sell it for a profit down the line.

Up to now, Coinbase has found that about 80 percent of its bitcoin wallet customers are viewing bitcoin as an investment, since they have simply been storing the currency, according to co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong. But Armstrong and co-founder Fred Ehrsam are betting that in, say, five years, the use case will shift, and 80 percent will be using it for commerce.

Either way, the currency still faces myriad questions.

When will the drastic increases and dips in price stop?

What’s to stop the price from crashing to the ground?

As the number of bitcoins in circulation nears the maximum of 21 million, will its value soar? If so, will hoarding reign supreme?

What’s the incentive for people to pay for products and services in bitcoins, especially while there’s the chance that a bitcoin worth $900 today could be worth $1,500 tomorrow?

Will states regulate bitcoin businesses through bitcoin-specific licenses, as New York suggested it may, and will that spur or inhibit mainstream adoption?

How will the earliest bitcoin community members, who built the currency in part on a foundation of anonymity, respond to an increasingly aggressive drive to link identity to bitcoin ownership?

I could go on for days. The Coinbase guys think they have answers for some of these. On the topic of price volatility, for example, Armstrong insists it is a “self-correcting problem.”

“Over time, more and more transactions happen on bitcoin, and more people become aware of it,” he said. “So any given news event … is going to affect the overall market less.”

But Ehrsam admits that future government decisions around bitcoin in the U.S., while having the potential to boost the currency’s credibility, could also deal the ecosystem significant setbacks. Certain tax treatments, for example, could make the currency less attractive, he said.

In reality, many of these questions won’t get answered anytime soon. But now, Coinbase has the cash to build a business for awhile, as some answers start to emerge.

And its VC backers have placed an early bet in an incredibly young sector, on a company that is probably the best-known bitcoin consumer brand in the U.S.

That could mean nothing, should the bitcoin bubble burst as quickly as it has expanded. Or it could mean a whole lot, if some of bitcoin’s long-term potential comes to fruition.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131212/bitcoins-biggest-bet-andreessen-horowitz-leads-25-million-investment-in-coinbase/feed/0MasterCard and Samsung Team Up for NFC Payments in Australiahttp://allthingsd.com/20131211/mastercard-and-samsung-team-up-for-nfc-payments-in-australia/
http://allthingsd.com/20131211/mastercard-and-samsung-team-up-for-nfc-payments-in-australia/#commentsWed, 11 Dec 2013 21:46:37 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=378269MasterCard is partnering with Samsung to bring tap-to-pay functionality to Australian shoppers who own a Samsung Galaxy S4 and have the Commonwealth Bank of Australia app loaded on their phone. The payment method can be used by tapping the phone against NFC terminals that support MasterCard’s PayPass technology, with no need to open an app.
]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131211/mastercard-and-samsung-team-up-for-nfc-payments-in-australia/feed/0Square Acquires, and Will Shut Down, Evenlyhttp://allthingsd.com/20131211/square-acquires-and-will-shut-down-evenly/
http://allthingsd.com/20131211/square-acquires-and-will-shut-down-evenly/#commentsWed, 11 Dec 2013 17:47:48 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=378173Square said on Wednesday that the four-person staff of a startup called Evenly will be joining the Jack Dorsey-led company in what is essentially an “acqhire.” The Evenly app, which will be shut down early next year, aimed to help people collect shared expenses from friends and others.
]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131211/square-acquires-and-will-shut-down-evenly/feed/0Amazon Confirms San Francisco Launch of AmazonFresh Grocery Delivery Servicehttp://allthingsd.com/20131211/amazon-confirms-san-francisco-launch-of-amazonfresh-grocery-delivery-service/
http://allthingsd.com/20131211/amazon-confirms-san-francisco-launch-of-amazonfresh-grocery-delivery-service/#commentsWed, 11 Dec 2013 15:27:55 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=378124

Amazon announced today that its AmazonFresh next-day and same-day grocery delivery service is expanding beyond Seattle and Los Angeles and into San Francisco, as AllThingsDreported last week was close to happening.

With Fresh, which launched in Seattle more than five years ago and expanded to Los Angeles six months ago, Amazon will deliver foods such as fresh fish and produce, as well as an array of other products, including electronics and toys, that it is storing in its warehouse facilities, which have also been outfitted for refrigeration.

For same-day delivery, items need to be ordered by 10 am; later orders will arrive the next morning.

After a 30-day free trial, customers who want to use the service will have to step up and purchase a $299 annual membership to Prime Fresh, which also includes the normal two-day free-shipping benefits of Amazon Prime.

That pricing is a bit aggressive, but Amazon must like what it is seeing in terms of adoption in Los Angeles to launch a third market so quickly after the second.

In San Francisco, AmazonFresh will face off against a variety of competitors, big and small.

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131211/amazon-confirms-san-francisco-launch-of-amazonfresh-grocery-delivery-service/feed/0ShopRunner CEO Scott Thompson Joins Board of Lead-Gen Startup Radiushttp://allthingsd.com/20131211/shoprunner-ceo-scott-thompson-joins-board-of-lead-gen-startup-radius/
http://allthingsd.com/20131211/shoprunner-ceo-scott-thompson-joins-board-of-lead-gen-startup-radius/#commentsWed, 11 Dec 2013 12:00:17 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=377980Scott Thompson, the CEO of ShopRunner and onetime CEO of Yahoo, has joined the board of directors of Radius, a startup that helps salespeople build targeted lists of prospective small-business customers. Radius started off as Fwix, an aggregator of so-called “hyperlocal content,” and has raised more than $30 million from BlueRun Ventures, Comcast Ventures and American Express.
]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131211/shoprunner-ceo-scott-thompson-joins-board-of-lead-gen-startup-radius/feed/0Wireless Beacon Startup Estimote Lands $3.1 Million, Hires GroupMe Vet Steve Cheneyhttp://allthingsd.com/20131210/wireless-beacon-startup-estimote-lands-3-1-million-hires-groupme-vet-steve-cheney/
http://allthingsd.com/20131210/wireless-beacon-startup-estimote-lands-3-1-million-hires-groupme-vet-steve-cheney/#commentsTue, 10 Dec 2013 18:00:30 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=377737Estimote, a Y Combinator graduate that makes wireless sensors — or beacons — that can be used to transmit information to nearby smartphones in environments such as retail shops, has snagged a $3.1 million seed round from a long list of venture firms and angel investors, including Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Betaworks and Bessemer Venture Partners. The company is also announcing the hire of former GroupMe business-development boss Steve Cheney, who will open Estimote’s New York City office and run business operations.
]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131210/wireless-beacon-startup-estimote-lands-3-1-million-hires-groupme-vet-steve-cheney/feed/0Heavily Funded Flash-Sale Site Ideeli Is for Salehttp://allthingsd.com/20131210/heavily-funded-flash-sale-site-ideeli-is-for-sale/
http://allthingsd.com/20131210/heavily-funded-flash-sale-site-ideeli-is-for-sale/#commentsTue, 10 Dec 2013 16:51:33 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=377846

As the winners in the flash-sale category start to emerge, one of the earliest heavily funded companies is searching for a buyer.

Ideeli, which has raised more than $100 million in investments to fuel the sale of women’s clothing at discount prices, is currently trying to sell itself, according to several industry executives familiar with the company’s attempts.

The company may also end up considering selling its individual assets, with its database of customer emails potentially being the most valuable one, these sources said. Ideeli raised $12 million this summer, but is said to have been unsuccessful in its attempt to corral more funds since then.

Whatever the exact outcome, it will likely be disappointing for the New York City-based startup, which launched in 2007 and ranked No. 1 on the 2011 Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies, with revenue of $77 million and a three-year growth rate of more than 40,000 percent.

Since then, Gilt Groupe, Rue La La and HauteLook have distanced themselves from Ideeli in both popularity and sales, according to industry observers.

A year ago, the company refocused its efforts around exclusively selling discounted women’s attire, after unsuccessful expansions into travel, men’s and kid’s categories.

Ideeli CEO Stefan Pepe did not respond to several requests for comment.

Investor Laura Sachar, of StarVest Partners, said in an email that the company does not “comment on such matters.”

]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131210/heavily-funded-flash-sale-site-ideeli-is-for-sale/feed/0Square Unveils a Redesigned Square Card Readerhttp://allthingsd.com/20131209/square-unveils-a-redesigned-square-card-reader/
http://allthingsd.com/20131209/square-unveils-a-redesigned-square-card-reader/#commentsMon, 09 Dec 2013 15:00:39 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=377589Square this morning announced the release of its new Square credit- and debit-card reader, available now on Squareup.com and in the new year at partnering retail stores. The company said the new reader is almost half as thin as the previous one and should result in fewer swiping errors, while becoming compatible with more devices.
]]>http://allthingsd.com/20131209/square-unveils-a-redesigned-square-card-reader/feed/0Apple Hopes to Usher in New Age of Personalized In-Store Shopping With iBeacon Rollouthttp://allthingsd.com/20131206/apple-hopes-to-usher-in-new-age-of-personalized-in-store-shopping-with-ibeacon-rollout/
http://allthingsd.com/20131206/apple-hopes-to-usher-in-new-age-of-personalized-in-store-shopping-with-ibeacon-rollout/#commentsFri, 06 Dec 2013 17:50:43 +0000http://allthingsd.com/?p=377254

After months of speculation, Apple today rolled out its iBeacon technology in all of its 254 U.S. stores, allowing the company to send notifications to shoppers’ phones based on their location within the store.

The technology, which sends data to phones via Bluetooth Low Energy from iPhones, iPads and other third-party hardware Apple has positioned around its stores, will initially be used to prompt shoppers who have installed the Apple Store app and agree to be tracked to take certain actions.

For example, shoppers who have come to the store to pick up a device they ordered online may receive a push notification-like message indicating that the product is ready and to swipe to view the confirmation.

Another implementation triggers a message to shoppers when they are near the store’s accessories department and will prompt them to read product reviews and pay with the app’s Easy Pay function, which lets shoppers scan a product’s bar code with their phone and pay from the app.

“We’re really excited about what iOS developers will be able to do with iBeacon, a technology we introduced with iOS 7 that uses Bluetooth Low Energy and geofencing to provide apps a whole new level of micro-location awareness, such as trail markers in a park, exhibits in a museum, or product displays in stores,” Apple said in a statement.

The messaging efforts used in this initial rollout are pretty straightforward. But you could imagine Apple rolling out increasingly sophisticated use cases as time goes on, perhaps ones that recommend purchases based on current products a user owns or on online shopping behavior.

But, perhaps more importantly, Apple likely views its rollout as one giant demonstration for other retailers looking to harness the power of mobile phones to give shoppers more personalized in-store visits via their own apps, whether it be special offers if a shopper spends a certain amount of time in one corner of a shop or information about products.

Similar technologies have been out there for some time, but Apple’s arrival in the space will likely speed up adoption.

The startup NewAer, for example, has been working on a technology similar to iBeacon for quite some time that supports both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and which it hopes to license to brands to use in their own apps. Its founder and CEO, Dave Mathews, said in an interview with AllThingsD in the fall that Apple’s entree will legitimize the space.

“IBeacon is a real win for us,” he said at the time. “We don’t really have to explain any more what this is about.”

Other kinds of startups, such as Nomi and Euclid, are beginning to capitalize on retailers’ desire to learn more about what goes on in their stores by tracking shoppers’ movements and providing retailers with information about how many people are visiting their stores, how frequently, and where they are spending time inside a given shop during a visit.

Nomi will work with a retailer to match a given device with a person’s real identity, should they opt in in some fashion. Euclid has refrained from doing this and provides retailers with aggregate data.

Any technology that hopes to match a specific device with an individual’s real-world identity will rightly raise privacy concerns, making the messaging around tracking opt-in critical to shoppers’ acceptance of the practice. Of course, shoppers will want to see some real value in exchange for information about themselves. Whether iBeacon and other technologies will provide that remains to be seen.